MICHAEL O’DONNELL

FOUR EXHIBITIONS

BYEOKAYAMENPEACEI HAVE

WARDEN SEE YOU I’M DONELET’S GOTHAT’S ITTHAT IS ITI’M READY I LOVE YAGOODBYEI LOVE ALLLET’S RIDELET’S DO ITI LOVE YOU I AM READYAIN’T LIFE ATHAT IS ALLBE STRONGTHANK YOUTHANKS SIRI LOVE Y’ALLHIGH FLIGHTPRAISE GODI’LL SEE YOURELEASE MEO.K. WARDENIT IS FINISHEDI AM FINISHEDSTAY STRONGLOVE YOU ALLPRAISE ALLAHO.K. I’M READYI CAN TASTE ITI AM SO SORRYI LOVE YOU ALLTHAT’S ALL SIRTHANK YOU SIRTHANKS JONESSEND ME HOMEI LOVE YOU DADREADY WARDENI LOVE YOU MOMPEACE, I’M DONEI DIDN’T MEAN TOTHAT’S ABOUT ITGOODBYE, DAVIDI LOVE YOU IRENEI GUESS THIS IS ITI CAN FEEL IT NOWTHY WILL BE DONEI AM READY TO GOGOODBYE, DONNAI AM TRULY SORRYLOVE YOU, THOMASI GUESS THAT’S ALLTHANK YOU, JESUSFATHER ACCEPT MEALISON, I LOVE YOUEVERYTHING IS O.K.I’M READY, WARDENSANTAJAIB SINGH JII AM REALLY SORRYY’ALL STAY STRONGI AM READY WARDENI WILL WAIT FOR YOUYOU ALL BE STRONGGOD BLESS YOU ALLI’M DONE, LETS DO ITI LOVE YOU FOREVERARE YOU ALL HAPPY?LET THE LIGHT SHINEI AM GOING TO SLEEPFIGHT FOR THE GOODTHAT IS ALL WARDENI’M FINISHED TALKINGTELL MOM I LOVE HERWE’RE DONE WARDENBOBBY NELL LOVE YAJESUS TAKE ME HOMEI WILL SEE YOU LATERTHA’TS IT AND DIDMAUGIVE ME BACK MY LIFETHAT’S ALL, I’M SORRYPRAISE THE LORD GODAND JACK, THANK YOUO.K., NOW I’M FINISHEDTELL MAMA I LOVE HERSTART THINGS ROLLINGPEACE AND GOODNESSO.K. WARDEN, ROLL’EMLOVE YOU, JAVIER CRUZGOD BLESS EVERYBODYWARDEN, TAKE ME HOMETHAT’S ALL I GOT TO SAYI WISH EVERYBODY WELLTAKE ME HOME OH LORDTHANK YOU, DANA.....YESTO MY FAMILY:I LOVE YOUKEEP ME IN YOUR HEARTSIT’S GOING TO BE ALRIGHTTHAT’S ALL I HAVE TO SAYTHAT IS ALL I HAVE TO SAYMY WIFE IS VERY DEVOTEDTHANKS FOR COMING JACKI’M READY WHEN YA’LL AREGOODBYE, SUN, I LOVE YOUI LOVE YOU, MOM GOODBYE

PEACE, FREEDOM, I’M READYYOU MAY PROCEED WARDENDOUG, DON’T FORGET MARCYLET MY SON KNOW I LOVE HIMGIVE MY LOVE TO EVERYBODYOKAY WARDEN I AM THROUGHMAY GOD BLESS ALL MANKINDTHANKS FOR BEING MY FRIENDI DESERVE WHAT I AM GETTINGAND THAT’S ALL I HAVE TO SAYTHAT’S ALL, WARDEN I’M READYI AM GOING TO A BETTER PLACELORD JESUS, RECEIVE MY SPIRITDO WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DOPLEASE KEEP MY MEMORY ALIVETHANK YOU ALL FOR BEING HERESHOUT TO THE LORD LET US SINGTELL EVERYONE I SAID GOODBYEPASTOR TELL MEGAN I AM SORRYMY LOVE IS GOING TO STAY HEREPEOPLE ARE SEEING YOU DO THISI LOVE YOU IRENE, I LOVE YOU SISTODAY IS A GOOD DAY FOR DYINGTHAT IS ABOUT ALL I HAVE TO SAYNO ONE WALKS AWAY VICTORIOUSDAD, I WANT YOU TO STAY STRONGTHEY ARE MURDERING ME TONIGHTTHERE’S LOVE AND PEACE IN ISLAMJESUS IS LORD, ALL GLORY TO GODI AM SORRY AND I CAN’T CHANGE ITI’M READY WARDEN, SEND ME HOMETHANK YOU FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY

I AM READY FOR THE FINAL BLESSINGBOSWELL MAY HAVE REACTED TO THEBUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVEYOU JUST KEEP DOING YOUR MINISTRY

I LOVE Y’ALL AND I’M GONNA MISS YA’LLYES, AIN’T NO WAY FO’ FO‘, I LOVE Y’ALLTHANK YOU BOTH FOR LOVING ME AMENREMEMBER, GOD IS PEACE, GOD IS LOVE

TO THE MOON AND BACK-- I LOVE YOU ALLPLEASE DO NOT HATE ANYBODY BECAUSEGOD IS WAITING AND GOD IS WAITING NOWI LOVE Y’ALL, SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDETHANK ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE HELPED MEWELL, MY FRIENDS IN MY HEART I’M READYMOMMY I WILL BE HOME WHEN I GET THERE

I’LL SEE YOU WHEN YOU GET THERE , OKAY?ALL RIGHT WARDEN I AM READY TO GO HOMEI LOVE YOU ALL AND I AM READY TO GO HOMEI HOPE MRS. HOWARD CAN FIND PEACE IN THISI LOVE YOU, I’M THROUGH WITH MY STATEMENTTHANK YOU FOR ALL THAT YOU HAVE GIVEN METHAT IS ABOUT ALL I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THATI JUST LOVE EVERYBODY, AND THAT’S ABOUT ITTAKE MY HAND, LORD JESUS, I’M COMING HOMEI REALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO TELL YOUI AM READY TO GO HOME AND BE WITH MY LORDLET THOSE WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONETHANK YOU LORD JESUS FOR REMEMBERING ME

MAY ALLAH BLESS EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOUTO MY BROTHERS ON DEATH ROW MEXICO, MEXICO

SADDAM AND GOMORRAH WHICH IS HARRIS COUNTYITS TIME FOR A MORATORIUM IN THE STATE OF TEXASLORD JESUS, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMAND MY SPIRIT

ALL RIGHT WARDEN, LETS GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANTTHANK YOU JESUS FOR THE LOVE YOU HAVE SHOWN METAKE ME GOD, HOLD ME IN YOURS AND CARRY ME HOME

MY LORD IS MY LIFE AND SAVIOUR, NOTHING SHALL I FEARYOU KNOW WHO THEY ARE: CHARLES BASS, DAVID POWELLI KNOW I AM WRONG BUT I AM ASKING Y’ALL TO FORGIVE METHEY ARE THE KEY TO MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACEI LOVE YOU ALL AND I WILL SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE O.K.I FORGIVE ALL OF YOU-HOPE GOD FORGIVES ALL OF YOU TOOI HAVE NO REVENGE BECAUSE HATE WON’T SOLVE ANYTHINGDON’T FORGET TO TELL MY DAUGHTER...I AM READY, WARDEN

TO MY FAMILY WHO HAS KEPT ME STRONG, I GIVE YOU MY LOVEI’M AN AFRICAN WARRIOR, BORN TO BREATH, AND BORN TO DIEI LOVE YOU ALL AND THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF MY LIFEYOU ARE ALL IN MY HEART AND SOUL AND I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

I STILL PROCLAIM I AM INNOCENT, AND THAT IS ALL I HAVE TO SAYI WANT THOSE OUT THERE TO KEEP FIGHTING THE DEATH PENALTYI AM READY TO BEGIN MY JOURNEY AND THAT’S ALL I HAVE TO SAY

I LOVE YOU MALYSSA, TAKE CARE OF THAT LITTLE MONSTER FOR MEI PRAY THAT MY FAMILY WILL REJOICE AND WILL FORGIVE, THANK YOUTO ALL OF MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY, I LOVE YOU AND I AM GOING HOMEI REALLY HATE THAT; AND THAT I’M HOPING THEY ARE GOING TO BE O.K.TELL EVERYONE ON DEATH ROW TO KEEP THE FAITH AND DON’T GIVE UPTO MY FAMILY, I’LL BE WAITING THERE FOR Y’ALL, ALRIGHT? GOD BLESSLORD JESUS, I COMMIT MY SOUL TO YOU, I PRAISE YOU AND I THANK YOUOH, I WOULD LIKE TO SAY IN CLOSING, ”WHAT ABOUT THOSE COWBOYS?”GOD BLESS YOU ALL AND MAY GOD’S BEST BLESSING BE ALWAYS YOURSI WANT TO CONTINUE TO TELL MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS TO BE STRONG

MAY MY LOVE TOUCH EACH ONE OF YOU ALL’S SOULS AS I LEAVE THIS BODYTELL ALL THE BROTHERS TO KEEP THEIR HEADS UP, EYES TOWARDS THE SKYI GOT REASONS TO REJOICE AND I PRAY TO SEE ALL OF YOU THERE SOMEDAY

I WISH I COULD TAKE IT BACK, BUT I JUST PRAY AND ASK THAT YOU FORGIVE MEI AM GOING HOME TO SEE MY SON AND MY MOM, I LOVE YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU

AND I JUST WANT TO TELL MY MOM THAT I LOVE HER AND WILL SEE HER IN HEAVENI LOVE YOU TOO UNCLE KYLE; I AM STILL YOUR NEPHEW, NO MATTER WHAT YOU BELIEVE

JOHN GOMEZ WAS THERE HE TOLD VERONICA THAT ”HE DOESN’T LOVE YOU” I DIDN’T CARELORD JESUS FORGIVE ME MY SINS, PLEASE FORGIVE ME THE SINS THAT I CAN’T REMEMBERAND TO EVERYONE IN THE POLUNSKY UNIT, JUST KEEP YOUR HEADS UP AND STAY STRONG TO MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS, I LOVE YOU AND SOME DAY WE WILL ALL BE TOGETHER AGAIN

ONLY THE SKY AND THE GREEN GRASS GOES ON FOREVER AND TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO DIEI WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE CHAPLAIN AND ALL THE REST WHO HAVE OFFERED THEIR PRAYERS

I WANTED TO WAIT FOR A THIRTY DAY STAY FOR A DNA TEST SO THAT YOU KNOW WHO DID THIS CRIMEI WOULD LIKE TO THANK MY LAWYER, NANCY, FOR HER HELP ON MY CASE AND FOR BEING WITH ME NOWTHANK YOU GUYS FOR BEING THERE AND GIVING ME A LITTLE BIT OF SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE AND SUPPORT

I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT THE PROSECUTOR AND BILL SCOTT ARE SORRY SONS OF BITCHESI JUST WANT TO TELL MY FAMILY I LOVE THEM, AND I THANK THE LORD JESUS FOR GIVING ME ANOTHER CHANCE AND SAVING ME

I JUST ASK EVERYBODY I EVER HURT OR DONE ANYTHING WRONG TO , TO JUST FORGIVE ME FOR WHATEVER WRONGS I DONE TO THEMI MAY NOT BE WITH YOU IN THE PHYSICAL, BUT BY GRACE, MY HEART WILL BE WITH YOU ALL AND I KNOW GOD LOVES EVERY ONE OF YOU

I WANT TO LET ALL MY PEOPLE KNOW AND EVERYBODY WHO IS HERE AND SUPPORTED ME THAT I LOVE THEM AND WISH THEM ALL THE BESTWITH THE LOVE OF CHRIST, MY LOVE FOR YOU IS SECURE AND I LOVE YOU PURELY AND WHOLEHEARTEDLY IN THE NAME OF THE ALMIGHTY GOD

I KNOW IN MY HEART WHAT I DID AND I CALL UPON THE SPIRIT OF MY ANCESTORS AND ALL OF MY PEOPLE AND I SWEAR TO THEM AND NOW I AM COMING HOME I HAVE NO HARD FEELINGS TOWARD ANYONE CAUSE THE LORD FEELS THAT IT IS MY TIME TO COME HOME TO HIM, MY WORK ON EARTH IS DONE AND THAT, AH, LIKE I SAID, I AM JUST SORRY FOR, BUT THEY WILL HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS ONE TIME AGAIN, CAUSE SOONER OR LATER, WHOEVER DID THIS CRIME IS GOING TO BE CAUGHT AND

THEY’LL HAVE TO COME DOWN HERE AND DO THIS AGAIN AND THEY WILL REALIZE THEY WITNESSED AN INNOCENT MAN GOING TO BE WITH JESUS CHRIST

I

OSLO MUSEUM - IKM. NORWAY

DISAPPEARANCE AND THE SOUL

Much of my artistic practice has dealt with monuments and monumentality, spiritual approaches and the commodity of death.

As with the pouring of water from a full tumbler into empty one, some inevitably disappears into the ether during the event. In my work, the notion of disappearance and its links to ideas around a soul

substance stems from three tons of paraffin wax that I bought in 1994 for a project at the Tinfos Factory area in Notodden, Norway.

The original work consisted two floor-based circles of turquoise green wax fish: one 20 meters and

the other 10 meters in diameter. There were a vast number of fish, which took nine months to create. This project was followed by a re-melt, where the fish gradually became 1525 heads, slightly paler in colour. The model for the heads was my own, and I endured hours of static participation in a process

of role-reversal, steered by someone else’s hand. The procedure was repeated again with another portrait. This time 1650 even paler heads emerged, after yet another nine months of alchemical re-

melting and recasting.

Since then, the material has gone through three further phases of destruction and construction. Each time a loss of material occurs during the melting and pouring. By the time I reach the end of my life

there may just be enough wax for a candle.

Wax and the “special soul substance” This exhibition carries on my long-standing interest in how death is conceptualized and deals

specifically the material of wax, converging religious notions of the soul, and testaments to mortality.

Eleven table-like objects in wax were displayed at IKM; not quite three tons in weight. Wax is one of those odd materials, which absorbs light, possesses a skin-like quality and has a long tradition of

usage from death masks to chamber of horrors that is Madame Tussaud’s. Marina Warner examines the nature of wax in Phantasmagoria and comments: “its relation to detail, its skin like appearance and this light absorbency and its inner glow give it a life like mystical quality that in some ways is

human. Not least, with relation to the death mask it derives its potency from the fact that it has been in physical contact with the deceased’s flesh.”i The death mask is made immediately after the person

has died, before decomposition renders the corpse unrecognizable. Wax has also been used for embalming, to create a preservatory skin or seal on the outside of a corpse, as the body contained

within awaits final unification with the soul, on the Last Day of Judgement. Wax functioned as preservative for the miraculous, as in Catholic rituals where the saint would be mummified for

continued adoration. Following the Council of Trent in the 16th century, the Catholic Church co-opted the Baroque and all

its theatricality, including the use of such saintly relics, into the overall marketing strategy of the Counter-Reformation to generate the incorporation of new and existing souls. As Martin Jay notes,

“rejecting the Reformation’s suspicion of vision and its trust only in the unmediated word of God, the baroque church, after a moment of hesitation, self-consciously resorted to sensual seduction in order to win back the masses.” Artists and artistic imagery were crucial in this venture. As Roland Barthes

remarked in his essay on Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order: ‘We know that to these mistrustings of the image Ignatius responded with a radical imperialism of the image.”ii

In De Anima, in discussing the relationship between the soul and the body, Aristotle draws on the notion wax stating: “one need no more ask whether the body and soul are one than whether the wax

and the impression it receives are one.”

The results of Dr. Duncan MacDougall’s search for the material basis of the soul – the 21 grams of weight loss, measured at the point of death of humans (but not dogs) in his experiments from 1901 to 1907 in America – confirmed his belief that a “special soul substance” did exist. The notion of the

soul’s materiality had been proposed by Rudolph Wagner in 1854, and, according to MacDougall, this ether-like substance would escape the earth’s gravitational pull and drift up and off, presumably

towards heaven, in keeping with his religious beliefs.

Converging religious attitudes In Consilience, E.O. Wilson notes that “sociology has identified the soul as one of the universal cultural elements.”iii According to most religious beliefs, the soul is the essence of the individual, which often returns to its god or goes onto live in another human after the body dies. In Christian religions, the

soul created by God is endowed with reason, the essential part of the human being, which will return to its maker for judgement. Jehovah Witnesses believe in the breath of God and likewise Seventh Day Adventists believe in the breath of life. Throughout Christianity God’s breath creates the human soul.

Hinduism preaches that the soul never dies; it migrates from one body to another, invisible and

indestructible. In Islamic thinking, Allah breathes souls into humans. In death the body and soul are separated until the last Day of Judgment when they are re-united. In Jainism every life has a soul. It has no taste, colour and cannot be perceived by the five senses. A “supreme being as a creator” does

not exist and each soul has the power to achieve godhood.

Judaism holds that man was formed from dust and Hashem has blown into his nostrils the breath of life and through his life attempts to achieve a full union with God. In Sikh beliefs the god Parmatra is

in the soul and the soul is in god. In Taoism the soul is pure and life will cleanse or clutter it. In Buddhism there are a host of differing ideas of the soul and its relationship to a single identity, as

well as its possible transfer after death. As Wilson concluded in On Human Nature: “The predisposition to religious belief is an ineradicable part of human behaviour. Mankind has produced 100,000 religions. It is an illusion to think that scientific humanism and learning will dispel religious

belief. Men would rather believe than know.”iv

The commodity of death Maurice Blanchot refers to death as a kind of new birth, where the witnessing of a death by another

individual creates a new epoch by the testament of the witness.

In Blanchot’s Death Sentence J is dying: “the nurse, not sure whether or not she was asleep, had leaned over her and suggested she have another shot, a suggestion which she did not seem to be at all

aware of. But a little later she said to the nurse, “No, no shot this evening,” and repeated insistently, “No more shots.” Words which I have all the time in the world to remember now. Then she turned slightly towards the nurse and said in a tranquil tone, “Now then, take a good look at death,” and

pointed her finger at me. She said this in a very tranquil and almost friendly way, but without smiling.”v

One of the works in this exhibition deals with a group of individuals on Death Row in Texas. It was their ultimate privilege, unlike most of us, to know the exact time of day and date of their exit from

this life. They were able to leave behind a testament in the form of a recorded statement.

Notes

i Marina Warner, Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media into the Twenty-first Century (Oxford University Press, 2006). ii Roland Barthes, Sade, Fourier, Loyola, trans. Farrar, Straus, Giroux (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1976). iii Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (Vintage, 1998). iv Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature (Harvard University Press, 1979). v Maurice Blanchot, Death Sentence. L’Arret de Mort, trans. Lydia Davis (Station Hill Press 1998)

BYE OKAY AMEN

PEACE IHAVE

SEE YOU WARDEN l'M DONE LET'S GO THAT'S IT THAT IS IT l'M READY I LOVE YA GOODBYE I LOVE ALL LET'S RIDE LET'S DO IT I LOVE YOU I AM READY AIN'T LIFE A THAT IS All BE STRONG THANK YOU THANKS SIR I LOVE Y'ALL

HIGH FLIGHT PRAISE GOD l'LLSEE YOU RELEASE ME O.K. WARDEN IT IS FINISHED I AM FINISHED STAY STRONG LOVE YOU ALL PRAISE ALLAH O.K. l'M READY I CAN TASTE IT I AM SO SORRY I LOVE YOU ALL THAT'S ALL SIR THANK YOU SIR THANKS JONES SEND ME HOME I LOVE YOU DAD READY WARDEN I LOVE YOU MOM PEACE, l'M DONE I DIDN'T MEAN TO THAT'S ABOUT IT GOODBYE, DAVID

I LOVE YOU IRENE I GUESS THIS IS IT I CAN FEEL IT NOW THY WILL BE DONE I AM READY TO GO GOODBYE, DONNA I AM TRULY SORRY LOVE YOU, THOMAS I GUESS THAT'S ALL THANK YOU, JESUS FATHER ACCEPT ME ALISON, I LOVE YOU EVERYTHING IS O.K. l'M READY, WARDEN SANT AJAIB SINGH JI I AM REALLY SORRY Y'ALL ST AV STRONG I AM READY WARDEN I WILL WAIT FOR YOU YOU ALL BE STRONG GOD BLESS YOU ALL l 'M DONE, LETS DO IT I LOVE YOU FOREVER ARE YOU ALL HAPPY?

KUNSTBANKEN. HEDMARK NORWAY

He works with monuments, attitudes to spirituality and the commodity of death.

There are three pieces in this exhibition

”Red Mist” 2 x 2 meters text on galvanized steel ...some of the final sentences of Death Row prisoners in Texas,

arranged according to length of sentence - just prior to their lethal cocktail injection.

The information became available to me in 2003 when my daughter, then a trainee lawyer, came across it during some research. It was for trade only access. The information is divided into four

sections: the classic police mug shots of the convict,

details of the convict, details of the crime committed,

a transcript, written by a warden, of a final statement.

It seems fairly clear that the first three sections are devoted to a proof of guilt – the mug shots set the scene, no one can look innocent with that style of portrait …the personal information adds to a sense

of foreboding, and the horror of the crime committed completes the picture. The final statement leaves room for the confession of the convict, to be heard by the witnesses of the execution process.

So justice is seen to be done and the righteousness of the process gives almost everyone involved the

means to survive.

Sitting on Death Row is normally a long wait - anything up to fifteen years – plenty of time to plan the inevitable.

In California there is a moratorium on executions. Its considered a bonus to sit on Death Row, as the

privileges far out way those of prisoners who are convicted to life sentences.

“Horse” Full size – for a small horse- aluminium covered with a pinkish rubberised polyurethane

surface...looking on, unconcerned

“A wooden construction” With flashing spotlights ..5 x 5 x 1 meters high.....which while challenging the rooms dominating, loft construction also performs the role of a hangman's scaffold.....a rudimentary dance floor......a survival raft-a temporary support structure for an unspecific catastrophe- reminiscent of the building site…. a

stripper’s stage at the end of the pier.

“The first pier, today’s North Pier, opened in May 1863, aiming above all at dignity. It was an elegant walkway over the sea, utterly lacking in commercial embellishment – but in 1868 it was forced to

provide various forms of diversions as its revenues declined after the rival South Jetty opened. Today’s Central Pier, this was known at the time as “The People’s Pier”; it offered dancing from dawn

to dusk, seven days a week. Similarly, in the theatre, it took a succession of financial failures before the town’s impresarios accommodated themselves to popular taste – a shift nicely encapsulated in the contrast between the founding ambitions of the Winter Gardens’ shareholders to provide “high class entertainment which no lady or gentleman would object to see” to the maxim of Billy Holland,

appointed manager of the Winter Gardens in 1881: “Give ‘em what they want”.

The origins of the Golden Mile perhaps indicate most clearly the contradictory forces at play in Blackpool’s development. As an unregulated zone, the beach had always been the trading area for itinerate hawkers, phrenologists, showmen and the like – much to the consternation of the local

tradesmen who regarded these “sandrats” as unfair competition driving away the town’s “respectable” business. Responding to this pressure, the Corporation prohibited trading on the beach in 1897, but this in turn provoked such a public outcry that the Corporation relented. “Ventriloquists,

Niggers, Punch and Judy, Camels, Ice Cream, Ginger Beer, Blackpool Rock, Sweets in Baskets and Oyster Sellers” could remain on the beach, but not “phrenologists, “Quack” Doctors, Palmists, Mock

Auctions and Cheap Jacks”i

I Tony Bennett “A Thousand and one Troubles: Blackpool Pleasure Beach” from The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, (Routledge 1995), p. 233.

LET THE LIGHT SHINEI AM GOING TO SLEEPFIGHT FOR THE GOODTHAT IS ALL WARDENI’M FINISHED TALKINGTELL MOM I LOVE HERWE’RE DONE WARDENBOBBY NELL LOVE YAJESUS TAKE ME HOMEI WILL SEE YOU LATERTHAT’S IT AND DIDMAUGIVE ME BACK MY LIFETHAT’S ALL, I’M SORRYPRAISE THE LORD GODAND JACK, THANK YOUO.K., NOW I’M FINISHEDTELL MAMA I LOVE HERSTART THINGS ROLLINGPEACE AND GOODNESSO.K. WARDEN, ROLL’EMLOVE YOU, JAVIER CRUZGOD BLESS EVERYBODYWARDEN, TAKE ME HOMETHAT’S ALL I GOT TO SAYI WISH EVERYBODY WELL

/ / ,,

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1-.&.-Nlll'fOU 1'111--tWL-'IDU&-. _...._ .. _ ,.,.._._ ,,...'NIU __ ........ ....

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TAKE ME HOME OH LORD THANK YOU, DANA ..... YES TO MY FAMILY:! LOVE YOU KEEP ME IN YOUR HEARTS IT'S GOING TO BE ALRIGHT THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY THAT IS ALL I HAVE TO SAY MY WIFE IS VERY DEVOTED THANKS FOR COMING JACK l'M READY WHEN YA'LL ARE GOODBYE, SUN, I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU, MOM GOODBYE PEACE, FREEDOM, l'M READY YOU MAY PROCEED WARDEN DOUG, DON'T FORGET MARCY LET MY SON KNOW I LOVE HIM GIVE MY LOVE TO EVERYBODY OKAY WARDEN I AM THROUGH MAY GOD BLESS ALL MANKIND THANKS FOR BEING MY FRIEND I DESERVE WHAT I AM GETTING AND THAT'S ALL I HA VE TO SAY

THAT'S ALL, WARDEN l 'M READY I AM GOING TO A BETTER PLACE LORD JESUS, RECEIVE MY SPIRIT

QUARTAIR. DEN HAAG. HOLLAND

In 1960 Elias Canetti published “Masse und Macht” wherein he refers, with emphasis on the concepts of crowds, to the celebration of a crowd at the outbreak of

the First World War and specifically to Adolf Hitler’s’ “St. Paul on the road to Damascus moment” at Odeonsplatz, Munich on 14th August 1914:

“But those first August days of 1914 were also the days in which National Socialism

was begotten. Hitler himself is our authority for this. He later described how, at the outbreak of war, he fell to his knees and thanked God. It was his decisive experience, the one

moment at which he himself honestly became part of a crowd. He never forgot it and his whole subsequent career was devoted to the re-creation of this moment, but

from outside. Germany was to be again as it was then, conscious of its military striking power and exulting and united in it. “i

James Murphy, an ordained Catholic priest, who worked as the official translator of

Hitler’s’ speeches and produced the only Third Reich approved translation of Mein Kamf translates the passage as follows

“I sank down to my knees to thank heaven”ii …not God.

In his book “Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives” Alan Bullock illustrates this event with Heinrich Hoffman’s’ photograph of that day, in which in the 1930’s Hoffman was to discover Hitler in the centre of the frame. He sent this to the Führer and remained

his official photographer until 1945.

The idea of the encircling of the head and the elevating of the individual from the body of the mass produced a series of works in which all the individuals in the

Hoffman crowd were re-photographed as witnesses to this specific event: the taking of the photograph.

It is an interesting image beyond the obvious – it is a bright sunny day, sunglasses were not a part of sartorial elegance, very few women were there, and in “Blowup”

tradition there appears to be a fight going on in the distant background, where a circle of men surround the combatants.

The work was shown in Wroclaw and in Durban as flat wall pieces. The A4 portraits

sorted according to their distance from the camera in the original moving up the wall to the most out of focus and distant at the top. One individual or witness,

chosen at random, was elevated to a scale of 9 x 4 meters. In Norway it was shown as a horizontal line bisecting the space, moving in and out of focus depending on the

point of view.

In this exhibition, three witnesses from the original work are used. They are from the back of the crowd, consequently way out of focus, but still clearly readable as faces, in spite of only four dark identifying marks on the white surface. This work

refers to the monuments to the unknown soldier – the First World War solution to the dilemma of how to remember the dead within the landscape of mass death and social revolution in post-1918 Europe. For the first time conscripted soldiers were

to be commemorated; individual death was no longer to be diluted into national pride in victory.

All men were to be seen to be equal.

Within the framework of the Second World War, Maurice Blanchot in “The Instant of my Death” describes his personal relationship

with death by firing squad …

“I know - do I know it - that the one at whom the Germans were already aiming, awaiting but the final order, experienced then a feeling of extraordinary lightness, a

sort of beatitude (nothing happy, however) - sovereign elation? The encounter of death with death?

In his place I will not try to analyze. He was perhaps suddenly invincible. Dead-immortal. Perhaps ecstasy. Rather the feeling of compassion for suffering humanity, the happiness of not being immortal or eternal. Henceforth, he was bound to death

by a surreptitious friendship.” iii

“There remained, however, at the moment when the shooting was no longer but to come, the feeling of lightness that I would not know how to translate: freed from

life? the infinite opening up? Neither happiness, nor unhappiness. Nor the absence of fear and perhaps already the step beyond. I know, I imagine that this

unanalyzable feeling changed what there remained for him of existence. As if death outside of him could only henceforth collide with the death in him. “I am alive. No,

you are dead.” iv

i Elias Canetti Crowds and Power trans. Victor Gollancz, (1973), p. 181. ii Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf trans. James Murphy, (London 1939), p. 145. iii Maurice Blanchot The Instant of my Death, trans. Elizabeth Rottenberg (Stanford University Press, 1994), p. 5. ivIbid. p. 7.

DO WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO PLEASE KEEP MY MEMORY ALIVE THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING HERE SHOUT TO THE LORD LET US SING TELL EVERYONE I SAID GOODBYE PASTOR TELL MEGAN I AM SORRY MY LOVE IS GOING TO ST A Y HERE PEOPLE ARE SEEING YOU DO THIS I LOVE YOU IRENE, I LOVE YOU SIS TODAY IS A GOOD DAY FOR DYING THAT IS ABOUT ALL I HAVE TO SAY NO ONE WALKS AWAY VICTORIOUS DAD, I WANT YOU TO ST A Y STRONG THEY ARE MURDERING ME TONIGHT THERE'S LOVE AND PEACE IN !SLAM JESUS IS LORD, ALL GLORY TO GOD I AM SORRY AND I CAN'T CHANGE IT l'M READY WARDEN, SEND ME HOME THANK YOU FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY

I AM READY FOR THE FINAL BLESSING BOSWELL MAY HAVE REACTED TO THE BUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE YOU JUST KEEP DOING YOUR MINISTRY

I LOVE Y'ALL AND l'M GONNA MISS YA'LL YES, AIN'T NO WAY FO' FO', I LOVE Y'ALL

THANK YOU BOTH FOR LOVING ME AMEN REMEMBER, GOD IS PEACE, GOD IS LOVE

TO THE MOON AND BACK·· I LOVE YOU ALL PLEASE DO NOT HATE ANYBODY BECAUSE GOD IS WAITING AND GOD IS WAITING NOW I LOVE Y'ALL, SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE THANK ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE HELPED ME WELL, MY FRIENDS IN MY HEART l'M READY MOMMY I WILL BE HOME WHEN I GET THERE I'll SEE YOU WHEN YOU GET THERE , OKAY? ALL RIGHT WARDEN I AM READY TO GO HOME I LOVE YOU ALL AND I AM READY TO GO HOME I HOPE MRS. HOWARD CAN FIND PEACE IN THIS I LOVE YOU, l'M THROUGH WITH MY STATEMENT THANK YOU FOR ALL THAT YOU HAVE GIVEN ME THAT IS ABOUT ALL I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THAT I JUST LOVE EVERYBODY, AND THAT'S ABOUT IT TAKE MY HAND, LORD JESUS, l'M COMING HOME I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO TELL YOU I AM READY TO GO HOME AND BE WITH MY LORD LET THOSE WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOR REMEMBERING ME

MAY ALLAH BLESS EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU TO MY BROTHERS ON DEATH ROW MEXICO, MEXICO

SADDAM AND GOMORRAH WHICH IS HARRIS COUNTY

This exhibition has been developed specifically for Örebro in Sweden

It is divided into two parts:

Part one is an on-going work, started in 2005, which deals with the poetics of exit by prisoners on Death Row in Texas.

There are around 400 metal plates each bearing the final sentence of a prisoner, immediately prior to

execution.

Not many of us know exactly when we are going to die. This privileged group usually find out the time and date three or four months in advance.

The death penalty was abolished in Sweden in 1921 …so the roles of the executioners

“bödel (the hangman)” and “skarpråttare (the axe man)” fell out of use when capital punishment was finally abolished in times of war in 1976.

Kumla Prison is where Sweden’s longest-term prisoners are held…in other times and attitudes, it

would have been Sweden’s death row.

Örebro is where applications for parole are heard, for prisoners convicted to life sentences - nominally ten years.

The current longest serving inmate in Sweden is Annika Östberg , who was sentenced to 25 years to

life in California in 1981. She was transferred to the Swedish women’s prison Hinseberg in April 2009.

In November 2009 her sentence was reduced to 45 years - in reality she will have served thirty years and is due to be released in May 2011.

Tony Bennett discusses the parallels between the historical development of the penal system and that of the museum from the position of visibility and transparency…

“ the scaffold and the body of the condemned - which had previously formed a part of the public

display of power were withdrawn from the public gaze as punishment increasingly took the form of incarceration. No longer inscribed within a public dramaturgy of power, the body of the condemned comes to be caught up within an inward-looking web of power relations. Subjected to omnipresent

forms of surveillance through which the message of power was carried directly to it so as to render it docile, the body no longer served as the surface on which, through the system of retaliatory marks inflicted on it in the name of the sovereign, the lessons of power were written for others to read:” i

“The scaffold, where the body of the tortured criminal had been exposed to the ritually manifest force of the sovereign, the punitive theatre in which the representation of punishment was permanently available to the social body, was replaced by a great enclosed, complex and hierarchised structure

that was integrated into the very body of the state apparatus “.ii

The second part of the exhibition showed five neon pieces. They are first names selected from the following groups:

the longest serving prisoners in Örebro Sweden, the latest prisoners to be executed in Texas and children born in Örebro on the same days as the Texas exit.

During the exhibition a “man from the criminal world” to quote the Konsthall staff placed a

traditional miniature red wooden horse (known as a dalahåsten) on a blue and white gingham cloth in the middle of one of the neon rooms, in a sort of offering to the installation.

One of the longest serving prisoners named in the installation was coincidentally released a few weeks after the exhibition ended after serving 28 years for a double murder.

“In discussing the proposals of late-eighteenth-century penal reformers, Foucault remarks that punishment, while remaining a 'legible lesson' organized in relation to the body of the offended, was

envisioned as 'a school rather than a festival; an ever-open book rather than a ceremony' (p. 111). Hence, in schemes to use convict labour in public contexts, it was envisaged that the convict would repay society twice: once by the labour he provided, and a second time by the signs he produced, a

focus of both profit and signification in serving as an ever- present reminder of the connection between crime and punishment:

Children should be allowed to come to the places where the penalty is being carried out; there they will attend their classes in civics. And grown men will periodically relearn the laws. Let us conceive of

places of punishment as a Garden of the Laws that families would visit on Sundays, (p.111) In the event, punishment took a different path with the development of the carceral system. Under

both the ancient regime and the projects of the late- eighteenth-century reformers, punishment had formed part of a public system of representation. Both regimes obeyed a logic according to which 'secret punishment is a punishment half-wasted' (p. 111). With the development of the carceral system, by contrast, punishment was removed from the public gaze in being enacted behind the closed walls of the penitentiary, and had in view not the production of signs for society but the

correction of the offender”iii

i Tony Bennett The Exhibitionary Complex in (New Formations 4 (Spring 1988), p. 73. ii Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans, A. Sheridan (London: Allen Lane, 1977). .iii Tony Bennett The Exhibitionary Complex, p. 76.

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TELL EVERYONE ON DEATH ROW TO KEEP THE FAITH AND DON'T GIVE UP TO MY FAMILY, I'll BE WAITING THERE FOR Y'ALL, ALRIGHT? GOD BLESS LORD JESUS, I COMMIT MY SOUL TO YOU, I PRAISE YOU AND I THANK YOU OH, I WOULD LIKE TO SAY IN CLOSING, " WHAT ABOUT THOSE COWBOYS?" GOD BLESS YOU ALL AND MAY GOD'S BEST BLESSING BE ALWAYS YOURS I WANT TO CONTINUE TO TELL MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS TO BE STRONG

MAY MY LOVE TOUCH EACH ONE OF YOU ALL'S SOULS AS I LEAVE THIS BODY TELL ALL THE BROTHERS TO KEEP THEIR HEADS UP, EYES TOWARDS THE SKY I GOT REASONS TO REJOICE AND I PRAY TO SEE All OF YOU THERE SOMEDAY

I WISH I COULD TAKE IT BACK, BUT I JUST PRAY AND ASK THAT YOU FORGIVE ME I AM GOING HOME TO SEE MY SON AND MY MOM, I LOVE YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU

AND I JUST WANT TO TELL MY MOM THAT I LOVE HER AND WILL SEE HER IN HEAVEN I LOVE YOU TOO UNCLE KYLE; I AM STILL YOUR NEPHEW, NO MATTER WHAT YOU BELIEVE

JOHN GOMEZ WAS THERE HE TOLD VERONICA THAT ''HE DOESN'T LOVE YOU" I DIDN'T CARE LORD JESUS FORGIVE ME MY SINS, PLEASE FORGIVE ME THE SINS THAT I CAN'T REMEMBER AND TO EVERYONE IN THE POLUNSKY UNIT, JUST KEEP YOUR HEADS UP AND ST AV STRONG TO MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS, I LOVE YOU AND SOME DAY WE WILL ALL BE TOGETHER AGAIN

ONLY THE SKY AND THE GREEN GRASS GOES ON FOREVER AND TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE I WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE CHAPLAIN AND ALL THE REST WHO HAVE OFFERED THEIR PRAYERS

I WANTED TO WAIT FOR A THIRTY DAY STAY FOR A DNA TEST SO THAT YOU KNOW WHO DID THIS CRJME I WOULD LIKE TO THANK MY LAWYER, NANCY, FOR HER HELP ON MY CASE AND FOR BEING WITH ME NOW THANK YOU GUYS FOR BEING THERE AND GIVING ME A LITTLE BIT OF SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE AND SUPPORT

I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT THE PROSECUTOR AND BILL SCOTT ARE SORRY SONS OF BITCHES I JUST WANT TO TELL MY FAMILY I LOVE THEM, AND I THANK THE LORD JESUS FOR GIVING ME ANOTHER CHANCE AND SAVING ME

I JUST ASK EVERYBODY I EVER HURT OR DONE ANYTHING WRONG TO , TO JUST FORGIVE ME FOR WHATEVER WRONGS I DONE TO THEM I MAY NOT BE WITH YOU IN THE PHYSICAL, BUT BY GRACE, MY HEART WILL BE WITH YOU ALL AND I KNOW GOD LOVES EVERY ONE OF YOU

I WANT TO LET ALL MY PEOPLE KNOW AND EVERYBODY WHO IS HERE AND SUPPORTED ME THAT I LOVE THEM AND WISH THEM ALL THE BEST WITH THE LOVE OF CHRIST, MY LOVE FOR YOU IS SECURE AND I LOVE YOU PURELY AND WHOLEHEARTEDLY IN THE NAME OF THE ALMIGHTY GOD

I KNOW IN MY HEART WHAT I DID AND I CALL UPON THE SPIRIT OF MY ANCESTORS AND ALL OF MY PEOPLE AND I SWEAR TO THEM AND NOW I AM COMING HOME I HAVE NO HARD FEELINGS TOWARD ANYONE CAUSE THE LORD FEELS THAT IT IS MY TIME TO COME HOME TO HIM, MY WORK ON EARTH IS DONE AND THAT, AH, LIKE I SAID, I AM JUST SORRY FOR, BUT THEY WILL HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS ONE TIME AGAIN, CAUSE SOONER OR LATER, WHOEVER DID THIS CRIME IS GOING TO BE CAUGHT AND

THEY'LL HAVE TO COME DOWN HERE AND DO THIS AGAIN AND THEY WILL REALIZE THEY WITNESSED AN INNOCENT MAN GOING TO BE WITH JESUS CHRIST

Special thanks to: Natalie Hope O’Donnell Danielle v. Dijk-Wennberg Dirkjan van der Linde Gøran Green Ingrid Blekastad Juan Andres Milanes Marit Gillespie & Kim Brandstrup Mats Nilsson Pietertje van Splunter

2011 MICHAEL O’DONNELL ISBN 978-82-991129-6-3 www.odonnell.no

printed…………………………………………

The first EXIT exhibitions were held in 2007 at Galleri Brandstrup, Oslo and Galleri 21, Malmö. Photographs were taken at the following exhibitions: Oslo Museum IKM: April/May 2010 Kunstbanken Hedmark Kunstsenter: Sept/Oct 2009 Quartair Den Haag: June/July 2009 Örebro konsthall: March/April 2010 Photos: Michael O’Donnell; Rune Aavik, Oslo Museum-pages 6,8,10,11,12.

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